Tuesday, June 14, 2011

What Inspired Your First Book?

What inspired your first book?

I was watching the news when I saw that a major retailer was in trouble. They hadn't done anything technically illegal, but what they'd been doing was, at the very least unscrupulous. Suffice to say, they were making money off all their employees, current and past, through a life insurance loop hole.

The original plot of my book involved a life insurance scam. I switched gears when I found out how hard that actually was to commit.

This is how I received the inspiration for my book (the second time). I was out walking my dog. The street was quiet and empty, except for me, and a man nearby in his garage. He was shoving items into the trunk of his car. When he saw me, he gave me (I thought) a dirty look, and slammed the trunk.

I thought to myself, (I wasn't serious) I bet he's shoving a dead body into that trunk. The beginning of my book was realized. The inspiration for my book really did happen, but, if you think about it, it really wasn't that big a deal. So some guy was putting stuff into the trunk of his car, so he looked cranky.

But, imagine if you happened upon a murderer disposing of his victim? How terrified would you be? How fast would you run? Would you get away? What if you didn't?

7 comments:

My idea for my very first book idea came to me in the middle of class when I was daydreaming. I scribbled a few lines on a sheet of notebook paper and it became a novel. Needless to say, I think I'll always remember that moment. :)

Did you ever find out what was in the trunk? That's a great story! I don't know if my moment was so finite. I love British Lit (Romantic period) and was endlessly fascinated by the personal lives of the Shelleys and Byron. They were as salacious as anything Aaron Spelling produced. And I loved that they'd sit around coming up with stories to entertain each other. It seemed so organic. Anyway, at some point in my commute and shuttling the kids around a story and characters emerged in my mind. Central to the story is the timeless and true notion that humans are flawed.

I wrote my first "book" when I was in middle school, during my obsession with figure skating. A girl with a strong resemblance to me moved to France and skated in the Olympics.

My current project is a rewrite of Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy's perspective. I was listening to Pride and Prejudice, and at the beginning of Chapter 33 (Section 2, Chapter 10) when Elizabeth is bemoaning the way in which Mr. Darcy always appears along her favorite walk, I heard Darcy's voice in my ear. "I had not realized that was to be a warning, rather than an invitation," he said, his voice colored with mortification.

Once he started talking, he didn't stop. I heard his commentary throughout the rest of the novel, and by the time I reached the end, I knew I had to tell his story.

My first novella was written as a gift to a friend. I set out to write a character a bit like her, and set her up with her perfect man. Of course, in a setting she had never read before, Regency England. She loved it so much, she demanded I send it into her favorite publisher. I was shocked when it was accepted! It's out as Scandalous Profession and is still my best seller!

My first novel began as a few scribbles of an alien civilization when I was eight or so. Later I tried to turn it into a novel but that only reached a few paragraphs in length. I came across an article about 2012 and the end of the world. For whatever reason, that ordinary article sparked an entire Universe inside my head. My first novel takes this end of the world concept to new heights as the Universe itself, ends. Read more here: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers33 and here: http://bsmeyersauthor.wordpress.com/about-me/

I guess it was a good thing for you that he wasn't really stashing a body otherwise you might not have been able to tell the story. ;)

The inspiration for my first book came from a sort of fairytale story that had been running in my head for years. When I sat down to write it though, I wanted it to take place in a modern setting so I changed my queen to a CEO and the commoner who loved her as the head of security. http://www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/publishinghouse/books/detail/10